AIRLIFT: It may look fragile, thanks to its filmy body covering, but the Aeroscraft prototype vehicle is almost ready to fly. A ground-handling test has demonstrated the rigid variable-buoyancy air vehicle can be controlled from the cockpit and can move without assistance from ground personnel. The Vertical Takeoff and Landing craft is designed to transport oversized freight from its source to where it's needed, such as remote or ecologically-sensitive areas. Better access for freight to fragile ecosystems may not be such a great thing.

SLOW DOWN YOU EAT TOO FAST: Do you eat too fast? The HAPIfork can help you. It's a regular dinner fork with a difference: it monitors and tracks your eating habits and flashes indicator lights when you eat too fast. Connect it via USB to a website or via Bluetooth to an app to help you monitor and change your eating habits. Or maybe use a regular fork and put it down between mouthfuls.

AS YOU LIGHT IT: Just when you really need a torch, like in a disaster, is when you're likely to find you have only the wrong batteries to fit. No problem with Any Battery Light from Panasonic — it takes whatever batteries you have to hand, whether they're AAA or D, even a single AAA battery. The torch uses one battery at a time chosen by turning the lamp end of the light, to drive its energy efficient LEDs. All rechargeables, we hope.

HEDGEHOGS IN SPACE: Rovers have been landed on Mars to explore the planet, and now NASA is starting to look at Phobos, one of the moons around Mars. The Phobos Surveyor spacecraft will carry half a dozen robot rovers that are quite different from the current rovers. The idea is that while the Phobos Surveyor orbits the moon it will deploy spiked, spherical rovers called Hedgehogs, each about 50 cm wide. The rovers will hop, tumble and bound across the moon, gathering and relaying research data. Scientists see studying Phobos as a step along the path to potential human exploration on Mars. A Phobos Surveyor mission could take place within the next decade or two. Inexorably the exploration continues.